Servants and "Leadership"

One of the things that remains difficult for me, even after two months here, is the very hierarchical nature of Indian society, and how it affects both my work relations and my general life.

To summarize, for those who haven't been here: overpopulation means labor is cheap. This, in turn, means that there are a LOT of servants and functionaries around, and have been for a long time. Secondarily, India was a colony for a loooong time, and the ways of doing business evolved in that colonial atmosphere. That, combined with the prior existence of a caste system, means that rank matters a lot here. "Doctor" is high up on the pyramid. So is "Westerner". So is "friend of the boss". "Visiting American doctor sent here by the guy whose money runs the entire organization" basically means that I can give orders, or at least very strong requests, to anyone in the organization who isn't Dr. Ashok himself.

On the work side, this gave me at the start a certain amount of management unease. My project staff are all masters-level educated. In the US, it'd be a collaborative process -- I'd suggest ideas, they'd suggest back, we'd try to flatten the hierarchy. If I were a pure Indian boss, I'd give them orders, they'd say "Yes, sir", and then go do them. Sort of. The Indian work mentality often includes a tendency to do as little as possible unless a boss is directly watching. Certain things are done assiduously -- always offering the boss the first/best chair, always offering tea/coffee, always offering food[1]. The problem is, these are done well in order to cover up the lack of actual progress on, e.g., data entry or annoying tedious analysis. (We can argue about lazy Indians vs lazy Americans until the sun comes back up, and in fact, this is a common topic of discussion among NRIs[2].) So, I am caught in between. I want to try to teach a style other than "managing by yelling at people". At the same time, I know there are cultural frames that I should try to fit into, because in some ways the staff are more comfortable if I behave like everyone else. I have actually made some attempt at "What do you think?" with the staff who speak good English, but the result tends to be blank stares.

The personal life side is where things can really get complicated. The fact is, life out here has not been comfortable for a Westerner -- beds are hard, water is cold (unless you want cold water, in which case it tends to be hot), you're living life on someone else's schedule, and sometimes the food and your biology just don't agree. However, I could have any or all of those mitigated if I so choose. I could have had an extra mattress[3] brought in, I can summon buckets of hot water if the geyser doesn't work, and I could get daily delivery of morning tea and potentially all of my meals. The problem is doing so defeats the point of trying to come out and experience "real India", to say nothing of creating unnecessary work for others. Moreover, the more things I request, the fewer are going to actually get done in any reasonable time. On the flip side, if I request absolutely nothing and accept whatever's given as a default, when I do finally need something (e.g., some clean drinking water, which was a big problem the first few weeks), the responsible parties may not quite understand that this needs to happen NOW. My Hindi is not up to the task of conveying the spectrum of need between "Not a big deal, I don't care if it never happens" and "Seriously, I will be back in an hour and if this is not done, heads will roll." (It does help that the higher up someone is in the social structure here, the better their English, so the nearest person who can understand me also tends to have plenty of power to get things done for me.)

Interactions of this sort pervade everything in India, and it's a constant struggle between my innate instinct to be nice to lower-wage people and a fear that this is sending the wrong message. Furthermore, I've found that if I don't behave at least somewhat like an Indian boss, the social cues don't quite kick in, and thus the work won't get done. The resulting requirement to occasionally be emotionally explosive and constantly be complaining about something is definitely taking causing some mental fatigue. The main thing I'm looking forward to about going home is knowing that when I ask for something, it's going to get done without my having to follow it like a hawk[4].

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[1] There is a whole 'nother entry pending on the use of food as a status symbol and the ways it drives me mildly berserk.

[2] Non Resident Indian, AKA "screw you guys, I want plumbing". Technically, I count as an NRI under the current set of rules, as India really would like her overseas children to come home and share the wealth.

[3] A "mattress" is an object one inch thick that keeps the wood of your bed from getting dirty. The exchange rate between rural Indian mattresses and the Sealy PosturePedic is approximately twelve to one.

[4] Well, right up until I start residency, at which point the administration of meds, planning for discharge, and everything else will of course get carried out with inefficiency that might make an Indian proud. But you can't shout at nurses.

[n] If you are wondering: yes to morning tea, no to delivery of meals, no to delivery of hot water, no to extra mattress, and special requests placed for a stock of fruit in the cafeteria and a personal copy of the daily newspaper. Net cost of requests, about Rs 10 per day, or $12 over the course of my stay.